U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,314 discloses a vehicle window antenna comprising a film of transparent, electrically conductive material between inner and outer sheets of glass forming a vehicle window. The antenna has a principal element in an upper portion of the window connected to an impedance matching element extending downward from the principal element. The impedance matching element essentially covers the entire non-tinted or light tinted visible portion of the window and has a peripheral edge forming a slot transmission line with the car body which is parasitically coupled to the antenna. The antenna is designed for radio frequency reception in the commercial AM (300 meter) and FM (3 meter) broadcast bands. The principal element is tuned to a predetermined wavelength in the commercial FM band and its impedance is optimally matched by the slot transmission line to that of a feed cable in the same band. Its large total area provides especially good performance in the AM band.
The aforementioned patent shows several embodiments of apparatus for connection of the antenna to a feed cable leading to a radio frequency receiving apparatus. Each of these embodiments provides a strip of conducting material affixed directly to the antenna by an adhesive, the adhesive either being electrically conductive for a direct connection between the strip and the antenna or, if not electrically conductive, providing dielectric characteristics for a capacitive coupling therebetween. In one of these embodiments, the conducting strip has a portion affixed to the antenna within the window glass, between the inner and outer glass sheets, and another portion projecting out of the peripheral edge of the window glass for external connection to a coaxial cable. But this embodiment has encountered manufacturing problems; and production has settled on another embodiment, in which the window glass is first manufactured with the embedded antenna and then a portion of the inner glass sheet and binder layer is removed to expose the antenna for affixing the strip of conducting material. The latter embodiment, however, has its own manufacturing complications which tend to increase cost and limit production output.